XP Unmountable Boot Volume

[barmstrong]

I was controlling my XP Pro computer remotely through Windows Terminal Server and it stopped responding. When I got home there was a blue screen that said Unmountable Boot Volume. I reboot the machine and got the same message, I reboot it again and tried to load the last known good configuration and same message, tried to boot into safe mode and got the same message. So loaded the recovery console. When I ran chkdsk /r it got to 18% and just stopped. Machine wouldn't do anything but there was still hard drive access. I reboot and tried just chkdsk without a switch and it stopped at 18% again. I ran fixmbr and it said it fixed the mbr. I ran fixboot and it told me that the file system was no longer known and may be corrupt but it did figure out that it was NTFS and fixed it. I tried rebooting and got the same blue screen. So then I formatted my C: partition and reinstalled XP and it worked fine. Booted the machine this morning and then it locked up in Windows. I reboot and now it says the following file is missing or corrupt: hal.dll Anyone know why this is happening?

My system:
Epox 8KHA+, 1.2 GHz TBird, Western Digital 40 Gig 7200 RPM HDD, 512 Meg Crucial PC2100

The machine is not overclocked. I am using a 80 wire 40 pin IDE cable. I loaded the fail safe defaults in the BIOS. Is it a virus? bad IDE cable? bad hard drive? heat?

Thanks.

 

[NogginBoink]

If there was still hard drive activity at 18%, chkdsk was still working. Be patient and let it complete.

Chkdsk is the right solution to this problem. (Unmountable boot volume.)

Since you reinstalled, though, that doesn't help you. If you're getting a missing or corrupt hal.dll, run the repair against this machine.

Sounds like your hard drive is dying.